Sir Irvine Patnick, the former Conservative MP who was a source for a false
newspaper story about the behaviour of Liverpool fans after the Hillsborough
disaster, has died.

The retired politician, who was 83, apologised in September for briefing a news agency about “wholly inaccurate” information he had received from police officers at the time of the 1989 football tragedy, which cost 96 lives.

He said he “totally” accepted responsibility for repeating the information, which led to a front-page story in The Sun headlined “The Truth” falsely alleging that Liverpool fans had urinated on police and made sexual remarks about a dead girl.

Sir Irvine was born in Sheffield and educated at the city’s Central Technical School and polytechnic.

Elected to the city council in May 1967 he contested the seat of Hillsborough in 1970 and 1979 before being elected as the MP for Sheffield Hallam in 1987.

A staunch Conservative right-winger, he was credited with coining the phrase "the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire", which was meant as a damning criticism but was instead used by many in the area as a proud declaration.

He used his maiden speech in Parliament to attack the city's councillors for trying to curb police activities during the 1984 to 1985 miners' strike at a time when South Yorkshire was still raw from the fall-out of the bitterly-fought industrial dispute.

Sir Irvine was promoted to assistant whip in July 1989 and knighted in 1994, but lost his Parliamentary seat in 1997.

However, his political career was later overshadowed by his role in the Hillsborough cover-up and some Labour MPs said he should be stripped of his knighthood.

After the football disaster, he was approached by White’s, a Sheffield-based news agency, which was reporting on allegations about the conduct of Liverpool fans. Sir Irvine confirmed he had heard accounts of fans’ conduct from police officers.

The Hillsborough Independent Panel ruled in September that the report in The Sun was based on information supplied by White’s, which had been briefed by police officers, Sir Irvine and the secretary of the South Yorkshire Police Federation.